Up In Smoke

"Smokers more likely to be impulsive"
Translation: we actually do stuff.

"Smokers are risk-takers"
Translation: we have more fun.

"Smokers more likely to binge drink, eat badly and face mental illness"
Translation: we don't listen to stupid government decrees.

"Smokers more likely to have girl babies"
Translation: girls are the product of disease and nasty habits.

With regards to the last item, if you have a good wife by your side, thank a smoker.

In 2007, 159,000 people in the US died from lung cancer.  That same year, 43,000 people in the US died just from traffic accidents.  An average of 3,500 people drowned in the US from having fun (not including boats).  Hell, 1.7 million people die each year from traumatic head injuries.  Are we going to make people wrap their heads in foam rubber now?  So when you say lung cancer from smoking is preventable, look how many lives could be saved by taking away your car.  Get over it.

Roughly 15% of all lung cancers occur in non-smokers, with another 50% in former smokers.  That's fully 65% of lung cancers in people who don't currently smoke.  Message: if you smoke, keep it up.  Look at Gerry Garcia.  He quit a 30-year addiction to heroin and was dead in two months.  Oh, and there's absolutely no proof that second-hand smoke does anything.  No study has ever shown a connection.  Everything you think you know about second-hand smoke is all assumptions and bullshit (see Penn & Teller).

Here's a headline for you: PEOPLE DIE ONE WAY OR ANOTHER

Yup, it's a proven fact.  We all die.  Most of us dies around 75 or so.  That's it.  Switch off.  No more.  A few lucky ones get up to 120 years, as many more get far less.  But we all die.  There is no such thing as a "preventable" death.  In fact, let's look at those two things in closer proximity:

Everyone dies.  There are "preventable" deaths.

Sorry, I don't buy the second proposition.  In fact, I'm willing to bet smokers have less vitamin D deficiency, since they are forced two to three times a day to go out in the glorious sunshine and smoke while their counterparts sit in their cubicles under fluorescent light breathing formaldehyde from the carpet fumes.  Who's smarter?  Those who get a break a couple of times a day from the office grind, or those who whittle away their lives in drudgery?  My votes for the smokers.

Honestly, it's not just smoking.  There are people who spend their entire lives worrying about the risks they take and trying desperately to extend their share of life.  My question is: Why?  If you spend your whole life building cages around yourself so you can have a few more years of misery, what's the point?  I'd rather enjoy it; take a few risks; get out there and see what's available on the menu.  I wouldn't give up even one minute of laughing for a year of extra life.  It's not worth it.

Those who bitch the loudest about smoking still get out of bed in the morning and drive to work.  If you are so damned worried about preventing death, then stay in bed and leave the rest of us the hell alone!  Live in a padded cage, never leave the house, and still die from natural disasters or some other "preventable" cause.  In fact, anyone who lives in an earthquake/hurricane/tornado/flood zone, or near a volcano or sea shore, or even where the air isn't crystal sparkly clean should be forbidden to bitch about so-called "risky" behavior.  Sorry bub, but you're just as stupid as the rest of us.

The next time you want to crab at someone about their "risky" behavior, take a full and complete stock of all (and I do mean all) the risks you take on a daily basis.  If you can honestly say that you do not take any unwarranted or "preventable" risks with your life, then I'll listen.

Otherwise, shut the hell up and let us living people live in peace.

If your argument is that you take certain risks to enjoy a certain quality of life, and not just quantity, then you have negated your entire argument against anything I do.  Add to that the fact that it is my damn life to do with whatever I please further puts your argument on the curb waiting for trash day.

Think about all those rabid non-smokers in their designer togs bouncing along major thoroughfares in major cities.  You're going to die - probably of lung cancer from sucking in all that car exhaust.  Idiot.

Give me a stogie and a fine brandy on the veranda any day.  I'll probably live longer than Jim Fixx.  All I have to do is make it to July of next year and I'll have gotten more life than he did with a hell of a lot less work.

Cigareets And Whiskey And Wild Wild Women

As an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain from smoking when awake. - Mark Twain
For most readers, I need not list all the people in the PTB set that have said on the record that they want to wipe out a fair chunk of humanity.  There's Prince Charles and His Royal Daddy, Bill Gates, Henry Kissinger, and the Bush Gang, along with the Georgia Guide Stones.  It's hardly a secret.

They stage wars to kill off thousands of the future leaders and thinkers.  They LOVE cars that burn all that delicious petroleum.  They fill up our drinking water with God knows how many nasty chemicals.  They promote drug addiction, as long as a doctor scribbles on a piece of paper.  They pump us to the hilt with vile, dangerous and killer vaccines.  In fact, they promote just about everything that will kill you while making money for them.

So what's the big deal with cigarettes?  Why the decades-long war on tobacco?  Why the brainwashing and laws and draconian efforts to rid the planet of this self-promoting cash crop?

It's but a vague memory now.  I live in Indonesia where cigarette smoking is still a right, a net exporter of tobacco and one of the few places left on Earth that still allows cigarette ads in print and on TeeVee (just can't show anyone actually smoking).  But I do remember the way people thought they had every right to treat you like a social deviant if you so much as mentioned Marlboro.

So, if the PTB/W are so damned hot to kill everyone while making a profit, why are they pushing this whole anti-smoking craze?

Adolf Hitler was a rabid anti-smoker and vegetarian.  Look what that got the world.  On the flip-side, nearly every artist I know is a closet smoker.

Sure, it causes all kinds of nasty things, but Xanax makes you suicidal, and they push that crap like it's going out of style.  Sure, stale smoke is not one of the more pleasant smells, but the BPA in nearly every plastic food container in your house is a really nasty little molecule.  Sure cigarettes are dirty, what with all that ash and the filters, but BP killed the Gulf of Mexico with its oil and Fukishima is killing all the rest of the world.

One could say that they really have a heart after all.  One could say that they need to have something they can point to for credibility in the 'caring and sharing' department.  I don't buy for a Jogjakarta minute.

The other day, I was listening to one of the dozens of interviews I peruse every week.  Someone said something that piqued my interest.  She said that some evidence pointed to cigarettes protecting the pineal gland from certain chemicals like fluoride.  If you don't know, fluoride makes people docile and open to suggestion, and since the pineal gland (also called the third eye) is associated in vastly different cultures with insight, intuition and wisdom, it makes a weird sort of sense.

It did get me to thinking.  Why would such murderous, evil bastards, who love making money and majik off of killing people, want to eradicate cigarettes that hook the smoker into a lifelong money-spending habit, and which has been a major cash crop for centuries?

And while we're at it, we could say the same thing about marijuana.

It does lead me to conclude that there is something about tobacco that they don't like.  Yet many of them are fierce smokers themselves.  I can't imagine they don't want us all riddled with cancer and shot-out lungs and heart attacks.  They love that stuff.  Packs hospitals, sells drugs and gets spiteful health care legislation passed.

Let's say the pineal gland does have a sort of metaphysical function.  It is, after all, the only part of the brain that doesn't come in a pair.  Suppose it does aid and abet things like insight and higher wisdom.  We know that fluoride has a negative effect on the gland, and Lord only knows what other chemicals the bastards are pumping into us and the effects they have on the little peanut-sized lump of flesh.

In my mind, I connect things like creativity and smoking.  Certainly, being a smoker causes you to take at least a couple of breaks a day just to stare into space while you enjoy sucking plant smoke into your lungs.  They sure don't like people sitting around thinking.  That's why they keep inventing all the Asian gee-gaws to keep our monkey minds occupied.

Cigarettes have seemingly always been associated with tough, independent and rebellious spirts.  Look at James Dean, Humphrey Bogart and the Marlboro Man.  How many times have you seen the image of the rough and tumble cowpoke plopping down by the fire after a long day in the saddle and sparking up a butt?

Could there be something to this?  Could cigarettes be the bane of Them?  Do cigarettes somehow neutralize some effort on their part to neutalize us?

It's an interesting idea to noodle on.  When you think about it, it really doesn't make sense that they would zero in on cigarettes with all the far greater threats to health out there.  Hell, most of the rabid anti-smokers I know think nothing of going jogging next to a busy street at rush hour.  There they are pumping gobs of nasties into their lungs and raising their heart rate to really get all the crud well circulated, while they're at it.

Certainly anyone who's read this site long enough knows that I'm rather independent and have no hesitation thinking outside the box.  I've also had a long, illustrious career in the performing arts.  And I've been a pack-a-day guy since I was about 13.

Hell, even Bammy is a heavy huffer.  If nothing else, you gotta give him credit for being creative.  He spins some good ones.  Got him the presidency, after all.

So it's just one of those ponders.  You have to sit up and take notice when evil murderous bastards seem to care about people's health.  It's not in character, and when people do things out of character, there's usually an ulterior motive.  It usually belies a weakness, too.

Next time you spark up, think about it.  Are you a rugged individualist with a strong creative streak?  It just might be because of the stogie you're sucking on.